Albedo
by Atman
Summary: Some men light cannot touch and darkness cannot embrace, but reflection and shadow will always grant them judgment. One man's reckoning in a place where neither light nor darkness let him see. Oneshot perhaps to be made into vignettes.


Though no names are given, the characters are the property of Tetsuya Nomura, not me. It's been some time and I need to write again. Happy Memorial Day.

The sky was silver,

The earth was gold,

These were no treasures,

The truth be told.

Midday sun shone on the pure sepulchral blanket that covered everything, even while more flakes continued to eerily fall, their albedos making them silent drifting daggers. The whole of the earth, it seemed, was a bright halo. That peculiar beauty would hurt those who beheld it.

Not long before he was walking, stumbling through the darkest darkness in blurry motions, but cruel light wouldn't let him see even now. It didn't seem to touch him. No glinting on his weapon. No glow upon his wild locks. Just filtered streams though a tattered coat that swept across the snow. How long he had traveled, with only reminiscence to accompany him. He squinted, but could distinguish nothing on the horizon, could see nothing at all. Then he faltered forward for a few more steps, breath haggard, no longer leaving wisps of steam when he exhaled.

At last he collapsed, without energy, without a destination, without even a recalled genesis. A blade fell before him from his hand. He examined it, remembering its once brilliant silvery gunmetal sheen. Now it was almost black and flakes of a caked-on substance that made it dull and unrecognizable peeled off and fluttered in the wind. It had lost its glimmer long ago, but the blood which used to give it a renewed shine was so thick now, it was impossibly heavy, and it made it so dull that it could no longer cut. He sat and clutched his knees to his chest, not cold, but with nothing left to keep him half animate as he was. He could recall where he'd been, but not where he was going.

Voices could be heard after some time. Whether they wished to hunt or help him, he didn't know. A rouge strand of once brilliant blonde hair fell over his eye and as he pushed it away he could hear the telltale sound of footfalls on snow cover approaching.

The figure reached him, stood above him, blocking the savage sun. He couldn't tell the stranger's stature when he looked up to it, for it just appeared a shadow in the brightness, and it mattered not, for the newcomer towered over the seated fallen man. Though the shadowy figure held a luminous weapon, the husk of a once proud, imposing, and strong man didn't fear. Though no move was made to use it, he held no joy either. Even his curiosity was muted, almost non-existent. He just sat watching as the stranger put the point of the weapon into the ground before him.

He was able to see more clearly soon, from a scar-interrupted gaze, and he saw it stare back at him. His mirror spoke:

"I am your judge." He put simply, with the slow cadence of soft and absolute conviction. "You have been sentenced by your memories to be locked away inside yourself, with them, for as long as you shall live.

"You will be sustained by your dreaming as what was, what is, and what will come provide you unending tortures. Then may you experience the further hell of what may have been." No memories flashed before him now, just the stranger's dark hair, or was it golden? He couldn't tell. The visitor never gestured, but continued to speak.

"I give you both current plight and happiness long forgotten, never again attainable. I give you love lost, never gained, and never to be held again. I leave you a shattered man and warrior with the indelible blood your squandered skills and life has garnered you and the immutable voices of those you ended and those who would have saved you time and again. Keep your failures and reach for the successes they guard from you; you can no longer seize them.

"I leave you a man with ever-closed eyes always awakening to the realization of some romantic dream. Forever orphaned; by your mother, by the seductions of surrogate family, by friends, by enemies never vanquished, by divinity, and even hope of oblivion's sweet respite." He lay his head back in the snow now, looking full into the sun, but it just made everything start to go black again. His judge walked over him and loomed down with one final reckoning.

"Through all this may you always have the hope to return and the hope for absolution; for I shall strike you holding an impotent weapon down with the sword of doubt. You will never overcome me or your prison."

His judge turned and walked away. He shut his eyes, but no darkness came.

May self-judgment never imprison you.

-Atman


End file.
